Pryde is Fleeting
by Wanderlustlover
Summary: Pryde's last visit to Wisdom, on the event of his opassing.


Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor college student. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.  
  
Feedback: Very much welcome. I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.  
  
Inspired by a night when I was wwwaaaayyyy too hyper for any good. So my muse started playing games with my imagination and this came out of it.   
  
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"Pryde is Fleeting"  
  
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"Hi...."  
  
"I don't think if I ever thought I'd ever get here."  
  
"Not like I could get lost." The figure rubbed its nose with its thin winter gloves. "I mean, it's not that you've moved much in all these months."  
  
"I just don't think I saw myself coming out here, even after watching the video."  
  
"Remember when you joked that if I wanted anything bad enough I would find a way to get it?" The voice laughed shortly; a soft feminine laugh that was caught and stifled in the breeze. "So I got myself a video of it. I got to hear Tabby call me a cow and a bitch and a few other not-so-nice terms before it was over."  
  
"I don't care though, she doesn't understand that this wouldn't mean anything to me," Kitty said with a sigh, staring at the block of rock in front of her. "I've seen too many tombstones in my life. It's all repetitive after the first few.   
  
"I think what got to me most was when she said I was too much my name -- that I had too much pride to come. She wouldn't get that I had to do something more important than showing up to hear a service that would talk about how you were an upstanding citizen, how the world would miss you, and God would welcome you with open arms."   
  
"I went to the window where we watched the sunrise the first time we realized we were going to try us. I went to the Chalk and Cheese just to look around and to remember when we told the others that night. I went up to Muir, too --it's really empty somehow without Moira, even if the Braddock's are there -- and sat on the dock -- the one you sailed away from -- till sun set and the stars came out. I watched the sunrise come up...through my tears."  
  
Rubbing her nose against the cold wind, she resisted for the moment the urge to phase out of being even slightly cold, shifting her weight and holding something in her hand. It seemed so odd talking to this stone, it was like talking to Illyana's. You couldn't expect the stone to actually be listening, but something about the name written so big gave your this urge to say things.  
  
"I quit the X-Men," she said in one breath, before looking to one side. "That's right. Now, Kitty Pryde is an average every day shmuck student, just learning how to get by and how to get along. The people aren't too bad. I've found a few I can get along with and who think on my level even. I'm making terrific grades and even being placed into a mentorship two years ahead of schedule."  
  
What was this? Was she just going to ramble on and on about school? About this school where in the end none of her friends knew she had a mutant ability, or that she moonlighted as one of the infamous X-Men? About the school where she felt....safe? And sometime happy and normal? Taking a deep breath she looked off around the area.  
  
"Piotr's gone, too. I know what you're thinking: Who was it that could take him down finally? No one. He died for the one person who always had his heart -- Illyana. Yeah, they found the cure for the Legacy Virus and he used himself as the guinea pig that had to release the cure into the air."  
  
A sniffling sound escaped and she reached up to rub her nose, knowing there was nothing to stop the onslaught she felt coming. Tears were gathering in her eyes, which made the headstone a little blurry, but she stared at it none the less.   
  
"Now you've both gone. The uniform did that to all of you. You, Piotr, Illyana, Rachel, Doug.....it's enough now. I don't know if I can ever go back. I don't want to die, Pete, and I'm not afraid of dying, but I am tired of these tombstones. You're not here. You wouldn't stay here if you had any choice. You're all in the ground and you've died for a great dream. You got a hero's burial, Pete. Just like everyone else."  
  
Another sniffle, and a tear started to fall from the corner of her left eye down toward her cheek.   
  
"And I'm still here."   
  
She choked on a breath that seemed to get stuck in her throat, and something between a laugh and cough came next, as she reached up to wipe the tear away with her mitten. Then she sat down about two feet from the large structure placing the object that had been in her hand down finally.  
  
"But at least I came right? Tabby would be insulted and annoyed that I waited so long. You probably liked her, too. Spunk and all."  
  
Pulling a glass container out of a paper bag she sat it down on the mound in-between her and the stone. Then she pulled out a small glass, then another and sat both right next to it. Setting the glass closer to her she worked on opening the bottle. "I brought you the good stuff even. Didn't think coming empty handed was right somehow."  
  
"I've had a long time to think on my future, and the possible futures I've seen since I was thirteen. I've seen stars and miracles, and love win in the end, and death claim everyone....and somehow I don't get how we're supposed to believe everything get better somewhere when everyone to come back tells us the future is warped, wicked, and messed up. That our actions have done nothing."  
  
Putting down the cap and starting to fill them, she stared at it as it filled small glasses. Then she set it down and looked at the tombstone. "Even when I first joined the X-Men, I got a dose of Kate Pryde, from a possible future. Not even two years in and finding out I may be doomed to a preset life that I can't change no matter what I do. I'll get there whether I stay and fight for his dream or leave to find my own at a university."  
  
"I feel trapped, and in the moments when it gets worst, and I want to reach someone from the life I've left, I think on who wouldn't be gone. The only people I ever come up with are Remy, Jubilee, Nathan, or Bishop. I've never been close to any of them, but they're proclaimed to survive it all, too."  
  
Picking up a glass, she held it in the light and looked at the liquid in a golden color as it moved in the circle she moved the glass in. "I'm never sure if it's better or worse to know these things. They always cling to you like your shadow once you know, making you doubt. So do loved ones. Especially once they're gone."  
  
"Well, here's to us, Pete," Kitty said holding out the shot glass to his tombstone, as tears started rolling down her cheeks unheeded this time. "To me and all the grave stones that fill the friendly, smiling pictures sitting on my desk in my dorm room even. Welcome to the family." 


End file.
